Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Jack asked:-

>I am curious, did I understand someone to say that Hebrew
>words cannot have more than one meaning, hence pun and
>double entendres are not possible?

The claim, made by Karl, is that lexemes, not individual words, have
a single meaning. Compound lexemes have more than one word. Examples
given previously are ``strike out'' as in baseball, and ``strike up''
as in starting a conversation. Both are compound lexemes and have a
meaning different from strike and out or up on their own.

I was curious as to how Karl's theory handles puns and other word
play which generate double meanings. He doesn't think my question
was genuine saying it sounded like a ``straw man''.  Also he did
not deal with the specific pun I put forward. So there's nothing
left to talk about and I'm none the wiser about how his theory
would handle a pun.


P.S. Thanks to Harold Holmyard for your helpful comments. I'll check
     what those three authors say about Gen 30:3 and if there's anything
     useful I'll post tomorrow. I thought you owned a copy of Alter's
     translation and commentary so you should be able to see what he
     thinks, if anything, before then.

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